The Dangers of Time Travel
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: McCoy learns of what would have happened if he had let Edith Keeler survive. Spoilers for 'The City on the Edge of Forever.'
1. Chapter 1

I don't own Star Trek in any capacity.

Please let me know what you think.

* * *

The Danger of Time Travel.

"Bones-."  
"Go away, Jim," McCoy grumbled as he saw his friend of many years, James T Kirk, come into the sickbay. The doctor in McCoy saw with a professional eye the captain looked tired, grief-stricken, but McCoy didn't care. He still couldn't believe that his friend had allowed a kind, compassionate woman to just die so callously. It wasn't like Jim to be like that, and at this point, McCoy didn't really care what his friend's reasons were. McCoy was still having problems sorting through the memories he had of travelling back into the past. Everything was a blur, really, all of the memories he had of being injected with cordazine by accident when he had been on the bridge, and he'd accidentally shot himself with the stuff which had driven him insane and dangerous with paranoia before he had beamed down to the planet with the sentient time portal, the Guardian of Forever although he had been too out of it to really take that in at the time. McCoy likewise didn't recall anything specific of his time in the past.

There were a few memories here and there; a man wearing ragged clothes, and so on, but he remembered being nursed steadily back to health by Edith. But now she was dead.

All because of Jim.

"Bones - Leonard, please listen to me," Kirk pleaded, looking earnestly at him. McCoy stiffened. It was very rare for the captain to use his first name, but whenever he did it was enough to get the doctor's attention.

"Okay, go ahead," he said, folding his arms and staring beadily back at the captain. The doctor wondered what could have possessed someone like Jim Kirk into doing something like that. It was nothing like him. Usually, he always tried to save as many lives as he could, but the doctor knew although he didn't have to like the concept, that sometimes as a captain he would need to sacrifice lives for the greater good. But why would he just let a kind, compassionate woman from the 1930s die like that? It made no sense.

Kirk suddenly found himself lost for words, surprised that McCoy was going to let him speak, but he was grateful for the opportunity he was being presented with. He had been trying to speak to the doctor in a civilised way for the last two days, but each time he tried Bones would just send him off, or ignore him outright. It bordered on insubordination.

Kirk knew no other captain would permit that for long; they would either snap at him or quote regulations, but Kirk was not going to do that. It wasn't that he wasn't capable. He was, but he didn't like acting like one of those captains. He wasn't afraid of enforcing discipline especially if the running of the Enterprise was compromised. But he and McCoy were too hurt by the loss of Edith Keeler, and his emotions were all over the place at the moment.

"You're not the only one hurt by what happened," Kirk said, at last, mentally hating and kicking himself for being so pathetic to use that as an opening.

McCoy's expression remained set, his eyes showing precisely what he thought of that. Kirk sighed. "Leonard, do you truly think I don't hate myself for what I did? Believe it or not, I loved Edith-."  
"But you stopped in your tracks when Spock shouted at you!" McCoy's voice was a low hiss, which he reserved for those times he was really angry. "History would have been changed-."  
"Aw, c'mon!" McCoy was shouting now. "Don't give me that! She ran a mission. She spent her days providing homeless people with food and blankets! She wasn't a world leader who would plunge the world into a World War; Hitler and the others in the bunch of madmen who followed him had that covered already!"  
"True, but she would have founded an organisation which would have delayed the United States of America's entrance into your second world war, allowing Nazi Germany to develop nuclear weapons and conquer the Earth, Doctor."  
Kirk and McCoy both turned to the door in surprise when they saw the tall lean form of Spock standing there, looking as calm and as collected as he normally did. "Spock?" Kirk stared in surprise at his first officer, so genuinely surprised McCoy knew this was not staged between the two men.

His friends. "What are you doing here?" McCoy had to admit Kirk had a point since the timing was just off. "I came down to sickbay before my shift started to 'talk some sense into the doctor,'" the Vulcan replied.

"Well, I don't wanna talk to you, Spock!" McCoy grumbled. The Vulcans' statement penetrated the doctor's consciousness. "Hold it," McCoy jabbed a finger in Spock's direction, glaring at him curiously. "What did you mean when you said that about Edith forming an organisation which delayed the United States' entry into the Second World War?"

Spock sighed. "Doctor, had you succeeded in saving Edith Keeler's life from that automobile accident, then she would have founded a pacifistic movement, and she would have conferred with President Roosevelt; there are some details which we are still not sure about, but we know for a certainty Ms Keeler's influence on the president was strong because when the second world war began, America was more interested in negotiating with the Nazis for a peaceful solution. The negotiations gave the Nazis the time they needed to perfect their experiments with nuclear weapons, and they would have conquered Earth."

"And the Federation would never have been born," Kirk took over the story quietly, his solemn expression set in his face. "Shortly after you jumped through the Guardian, we lost contact with the Enterprise; we don't know if the Nazi's had developed some kind of spacefaring society, or if they were still on Earth, so don't ask. All we know is when you jumped through, contact with the ship had been lost. The only reason the landing party were still there was because of the Guardian."

McCoy looked shaken by what he was being told. As a doctor, he was supposed to save lives, curing diseases or performing life-saving surgery. He didn't know the first thing about quantum physics, or temporal theory, but he understood the basics. "You….you mean, if I had saved Edith, it would have changed history so drastically, we wouldn't be here?"

"That is correct, doctor," Spock replied. "There are many theories about the paradoxes and the dangers of time travel. For many years, the Vulcan Science Directorate had claimed time travel was impossible for those reasons. However, because time travel exists, I believe that in order to compensate for changes in the past, time can protect itself because there are ways for time to adapt to the changes. For minor moments in time, the changes simply would not occur. For the major ones, a new timeline would simply branch out, and time would sort itself out from there."

"You know something, Spock," McCoy stared at the Vulcan. "That's the most philosophical thing I have heard you say ever."

"Only because I believe it is the most logical scenario, doctor," Spock replied. "I do not at this time have the correct scientific terminology for the dangers of time travelling. All I have at hand are theories collected from dozens of scientific cultures; Earth, Tellar, Andor, Trill…all of whom have investigated temporal theory in some manner, but none of their research has been conclusive. However, all of them had highlighted the dangers of time travelling."

"But you don't believe there is any danger unless precautions are made?" Kirk asked, knowing from experience how the Vulcan might have some inner ideas.

The Vulcan tilted his head. "The Guardian of Forever seemed safe, Jim," he reminded Kirk and McCoy. "We were able to pass through it and it protected us from any temporal damage or changes to the timeline, and don't forget the light-speed breakaway factor; it may be primitive scientifically compared to the Guardian, but it is a time travel method we can utilise. As long as time travellers merely observe the past, and do not get involved with events as they occur, history should remain stable."

"You do know, once Command hears about this, they will probably draft a clause in the rulebook prohibiting anyone from travelling through time," McCoy observed.

"I do not think it will make any difference, doctor," Spock observed, inclining his head as he acknowledged the logic behind the doctor's statement, something which Kirk agreed with entirely given how close the Federation had never existed because McCoy had saved a woman, who by the first glance, didn't seem vital enough for history to drastically alter.

"Time travel has remained a controversial subject, to begin with; no-one knew for sure if it was possible, despite rumours ranging from the 22nd century onwards to our discovery with the time-warp and the light-speed breakaway factor. But with the existence of the Guardian of Forever now known, there are bound to be other technologies out there, devices created by races with a greater grasp of temporal theory than what we have. Even if Starfleet bans research, people may inadvertently travel forwards or backwards in time, and as we venture deeper and deeper into space, it is likely this trend will continue."

Kirk rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I think what we need is a new Prime Directive, but one that is more rigorously enforced about the damage time travelling could do."


	2. Chapter 2

The Dangers of Time Travel.

The Guardian of Forever was unsurprised the landing party from the Enterprise starship had left.  
When they had arrived, the sentient time portal had seen only a few possible timelines where they would have travelled through its portal, to explore time in the same manner as they explored space.

When the starship landing party had transported down to the planet - it had been so long since the Guardian had sensed the feel of transporter beams in the local vicinity; most of the species that had existed in the era where the time portal had been created had developed transporter technology of a more advanced nature, although the Guardian would always favour the Iconian method personally - it had immediately seen several potential timelines.

The Enterprise crew were part of an organisation tasked with exploring space, and Kirk himself had claimed it was "strangely compelling" to step through the Guardian's portal and visit the past.

The Vulcan who had accompanied them had been annoyed so many eras were passing by through the portal's time viewing function, which had made the Guardian hopeful one of the timelines where Kirk would start drawing up plans for his organisation to not only explore space but to explore time came to pass. It had been so many centuries since the Guardian had been used as a means of transporting people through time, and there were so many things the Federation could have learnt, which would now take them centuries to understand. But there were very few of those outcomes, and while the Guardian was disappointed the leader, Kirk who himself was a nexus with a great many divergence points around him, had decided just to depart, the time portal wasn't completely concerned about it.

However, if the Enterprise captain had decided to stay and make use of the Guardians' ability to show time as it unfolded on the numerous worlds of the Milky Way, things would be incredibly different.

In one timeline the Guardian had seen the Federation discovering the Voth civilisation early, which had left Earth millions of years before. However, now that would never happen until a century from now, when a lone starship found itself lost on the other side of the galaxy, completely cut off from the rest of the Federation.

That same ship in the timeline which was now almost certainly coming to pass, as long as the Cardassians left the planet of Bajor after spending half a century plundering the planet of its raw minerals and oppressing the peaceful and spiritual people when they were meant to, although the potential divergence point of the Cardassians chasing a smuggler through the Denorias belt and discovering the wormhole which existed there still existed. But that was only one discovery among millions.

The Guardian knew from seeing how the Enterprise captain, doctor, and science officer discussed the notion of time travel, that they were thinking about the future. However, their knowledge of time travel was actually quite good, even if they had never really developed a time-faring civilisation. They didn't realise there were divergent points in history everywhere, and they switched over like the junctions of a railway line and letting history unfold from there.

The people who had created the Guardian had long since known there was no possibility they could just change history since they had discovered the futility behind it since divergence points existed everywhere, and as long as they existed, only the essence of those timelines could exist. The Guardian's purpose was primarily to observe those different timelines and their points of divergence, not to intervene or to interfere. The Federation at this time at large were completely unaware of the threat from the Borg, and the Dominion, both of them were trapped on different sides of the galaxy.

The Guardian had looked ahead and back, seeing how the Borg had sent one of their scout ships back into Earth's past to assimilate the Earth and the human race, preventing the First Contact. Unsurprisingly, the Borg timeline there was little different from the one where they would win the Battle of Wolf 359, which was a vital divergence point in itself. The Guardian decided to ignore the disappointment it felt the Enterprise crew would not be using it, although if they had then they would have seen there was a lot more to the Guardian than it simply appeared to be; a sentient time portal capable of seeing the different timelines as they unfolded. In a fraction of a millisecond, the Guardian mused once more about the timeline it would have preferred to come to pass, although its programming and its design meant it would never have had the ability to interfere or plead with the humans.

Had the Guardian been able to perform such a deed, it would have done so, but it could not change or alter history. The Guardian as a sentient time portal understood more than most what the long term dangers of time travelling could do, but at the same time, the Guardian could not help but muse about what could have changed. The Federation at this current point did not know anything of time travel. Had the Enterprise begun studying the time viewing function, they could have seen so much history. Not just in this part of the galaxy, which they named the Alpha Quadrant, but the Guardian would have shown them the creation of the Dominion as the shapechangers who had become the Founders, and created a ruthless empire while believing they were "imposing order on a chaotic universe."

The Vaadwaur and the Iconians would also have been shown, with the gateways being located once archaeologists discovered them and discovered how they worked, and the discovery of the subspace corridors which crisscrossed the entire universe would have been discovered much earlier while the knowledge of the Borg would have been handled more carefully, although the Guardian's view of that potential probability also led to a different divergence, although the portal had no way of knowing what would have happened either way. Time was a complex thing, and the Guardian knew only too well there were dozens of potential outcomes to a divergence point, and sometimes it surprised the portal when an outcome appeared.


End file.
